Donald Trump
The inexorable rise, for two decades, of racism and xenophobia, coupled with the hatred of LGBT people, the hatred of knowledge, of culture or even of ecology accused of being punitive, marked by the electoral triumph of Trump in the States -United, puts an end to a period which extended from the 50s and 60s to the turn of the 21st century.
This five-decade interlude will remain as a singular era, almost an anomaly, in the chaotic and cruel history of humanity, particularly of so-called democratic Western societies. At the end of two devastating world wars during which men gave free rein to the most devastating instincts, to the most destructive hatreds, a burst of humanity led to this period of 50 years during which xenophobia, hatred of the different, have given way to a little more tolerance, empathy or sociability between human beings. Never again, said the generations who had experienced the horrors of the first half of the 20th century and their children. And despite some detestable regional upheavals in the Balkans or elsewhere, this post-world war period will remain, for the first time in the history of “civilized” humanity, as an interlude where human beings of the same race, same culture, same way of life and same religions did not kill each other too much and showed enough mutual tolerance to live in community.
Because finally, what is the history of humanity if not an uninterrupted litany of killings and massacres? Tribal wars of prehistory, Egyptian, Persian, Greek or Roman colonizations of antiquity, feudal rivalries of the Middle Ages, wars of religion, conquest of the new world with the almost total extermination of the natives, more recently the bloody constitution of the Ottoman, Russian or Japanese empire, revolutionary massacres and Napoleonic exactions, slavery and the killings of blacks in America or South Africa, the list of massacres is far from exhaustive.
Relations between individuals obeyed the same deadly logic of domination: that of the predominance of men over women confined to domestic tasks, to motherhood, excluded from the right to vote and from any decision-making role in political bodies and even in social relations. That of the wealthy over the working masses. That of religious intransigence which has caused so much fear, death and exile. That of institutionalized homophobia. And many other relationships of enslavement and domination.
The interlude during which murderous instincts and ostracisms were somewhat subdued, where the “consciousness of the collective” as Marcel Gauchet said somewhat prevailed, is over. As the generations who experienced the horrors of the world wars and those who heard about them directly disappear, as the feeling of guilt fades, the baser instincts, the most detestable postures take over: homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, hatred of culture and knowledge, hatred of democracy and the appetite for dictatorships, the cult of the strong man and contempt for the woman. In short, history resumes its course. In an unbridled way.
Restraint, moderation, tolerance have become dirty words. Make way for individualism, for personal success at all costs, for unbridled financial logic, for unbridled capitalism which enriches the rich and impoverishes the poor. Let no one talk to us anymore about empathy, collective solidarity or interpersonal mutual assistance. These are considerations of the weak and those on welfare.
